Tuesday, January 20, 2009

I don't know about you but we are glued to the TV this morning watching the Inauguration. What an exciting day for the US, its wonderful to see people so full of hope.

Ok, on to the food....

We got quite a few cookbooks for Christmas & our goal right now is to try to cook from at least one of them each week. This week we chose a recipe from A Platter of Figs and Other Recipesby David Tanis. I really like how this cookbook (and Jamie Oliver's Jamie's Kitchen) is set up into recipes to cook by season, especially since we to tend cook a little more seasonal with our CSA. This tagine was appealing to us for its North African spices & the fact we had almost everything in it on hand.Other than sizing the recipe way down (we don't t need 8-10 servings around our house) there were only two major changes I made to the recipe. First, I used canned chickpeas instead of soaking dried ones. I did this because we had the canned one & we like the flavor of the canned ones better. Using canned chickpeas meant they needed to simmer in seasoning for much less time then called for to get tender. The other major change was the cut of the chicken, it called for whole legs with the thighs but I couldn't find those so I just used thighs.

I have to say we weren't blown away by this dish. The chicken itself was wonderful, moist, tender & flavorful, but the rest of the dish was bland. We were quite surprised by this. Perhaps we needed to add more harissa oil to each serving though I thought it was already a little greasy, maybe I should have ladled off more fat during the cooking. I think this recipe is worth playing around with & improving on. One thing I will do for sure next time is add less water to the pot before putting it into the oven. The chickpeas water wasn't enough to cover the chicken so I added a little more now I don't think it was completely necessary for the chicken to be covered.

Put the chickpeas, water, onion, cinnamon stick, cloves, olive oil & a pinch of salt into a saucepan. Bring to a boil then simmer uncovered for 15-20 minutes. The chickpeas should be very tender. Set aside.

Preheat oven to 400 F.

Season the squash with salt & pepper. Season the chicken with salt & pepper then massage it with the grated ginger. Sprinkle with the ground cumin seeds.

Heat the olive oil & butter in a skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onions & cook until golden brown, about 10 minutes. Remove from the heat & add the garlic, saffron & red pepper flakes.Layer the onions on the bottom of a shallow wide casserole dish or dutch oven. Top with the squash slices. Place the chicken on top in a single layer with the skin up. Add the cooking liquid from the chickpeas until chicken is barely covered. Cover, place in the oven & cook for 30 minutes.

Reduce heat to 375 & cook 30 minutes more. Remove the lid, if there is a lot of surface fat ladle it out. Put back into the oven & cook 20 more minutes until the chicken is lightly browned.

Warm the chickpeas back up. Drain. Add a dab of butter & a pinch of salt to them.